1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |GAO Sustains For Failure To Set Aside For Small Business

GAO Sustains For Failure To Set Aside For Small Business

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 10.20.04

In Information Ventures, Inc. (Oct. 8, 2004), GAO sustained a pre-award protest of an unrestricted procurement because the agency failed to take reasonable efforts to ascertain whether at least two small businesses were capable of performing the work, and, in fact, that the agency ignored known information that there were at least two small businesses that could have done so. Lesson learned from this case is that small businesses should carefully monitor the issuance of unrestricted procurements and object prior to the submission of proposals (due to strict GAO timeliness rules) if they believe that multiple small business are capable of performing the work.

Contacts

Insights

Client Alert | 2 min read | 12.19.25

GAO Cautions Agencies—Over-Redact at Your Own Peril

Bid protest practitioners in recent years have witnessed agencies’ increasing efforts to limit the production of documents and information in response to Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protests—often will little pushback from GAO. This practice has underscored the notable difference in the scope of bid protest records before GAO versus the Court of Federal Claims. However, in Tiger Natural Gas, Inc., B-423744, Dec. 10, 2025, 2025 CPD ¶ __, GAO made clear that there are limits to the scope of redactions, and GAO will sustain a protest where there is insufficient evidence that the agency’s actions were reasonable....